A trio of air-goblins streak out towards their aerial foe... doing less than superb attacks.
For his part, Clank fires a shot as well.
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Lenny takes tall steps to work his way through the ash drifts, bringing his suddenly appearing solar sword down through the skreeling's shoulder! One wing now hangs limply from it's side and it falls down to the ash where it stumbles - barely alive. Davrin comes into Lenny's view as the halfly sneaks along the inner cave wall. A burst of acid hits the second skreeling in the chest, drawing out an awful scream from the small alien.
Zulu aims around the wall of the cave, catching a glimpse of the skreeling's wing. However, as he fires a large burst of laser, the wing goes limp from Lenny's strike! The android's shot hits the wall with a splash. Pippimi, offering up her best vesk war cry, throws a knife into the left skreeling's chest. It's eyes widen, looking down at the knife as an invisible string pulls the weapon from the wound and back into the skittermander's hand(s).
A trio of air devils goblin spirits materialize into existence, flying around the corner and into the face of the center skreeling. Together they manage to gouge into one of the beast's wings, slowing it down. Clank, unable to see the target of his little air babies, shrugs his goblin shoulders and sends a shot into the wobbling skreeling by Lenny. It drops into the ash, the lifeless body sinking into the heap. Meanwhile, Zoran offers encouragement from afar. "Get the left one!"
The two remaining skreelings flap their wings, now in their home turf within the cave. They manage to squeeze around Pippimi, where they latch onto her armor and begin to scrape their armored tails along her armor until they find weak points. The Blastwerks armor keeps most of the damage at bay, but the beasts manage to prick two tiny holes in the suit!
Clank
Davrin
Zulu
Zoran x2
Lenny 39/45 SP
Pippimi 11/40 SP
Green Skreeling 12 damage
Orange Skreeling 26 damage, flat footed
Purple Skreeling 41 damage
Davrin quickly moves back, continuing his barrage of fire on the same skreeling.
Zulu shuffles through the ash behind Lenny, finding a somewhat clear Lane to the flying creature their resident fitness expert was menacing.
Getting a clear enough shot, Zulu fires again.
As he sees Pip taking a a beating he calls out.
"Pip, that is not how you handle things. Teach them a lesson." he cheers while moving up to help her get free.
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He then turns his attention to both skreelings and shrieks at it in a similar manner.
Pippimi spins around, distracting orange for Lenny and then continuing the spin into a pair of starknife slashes! "Bad creatures, Pippimi blood not for eating!" Even as she speaks, her wounds bleed unpleasantly.
At Zoran's shout of encouragement, she waves at him "Zoran right! Pippimi not hurt at all!"
Clank decides that things sound crowded enough that he'll hang back, for now. "Everything ok in there?" The swarm of air elementals continue their attacks relentlessly. [ooc]Orange if they're still up, if not moving on.
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Davrin blends into the shadows, then pops up out of the pile of ash to hit the skreeling in the skull with a perfectly aimed ball of acid! It's skull explodes and the body falls to the ash, skin melting. Lenny shoves his way through the ash, around the corpses to the final skreeling. With a vicious backhand he slashes through the skin of the skreeling.
Zulu, his sensors thrown off by the floating ash, sends his shot into the cave wall. The remaining skreeling's head twists to the side as it stares at the four-armed alien skreeching in an all too similar tone. As it turns to the side, Pippimi stabs in twice and cuts down the alien!
Clank
Davrin
Zulu
Zoran
Lenny 39/45 SP
Pippimi 39/40 SP, Bleed 1
Green Skreeling 50 damage
Orange Skreeling 52 damage
Purple Skreeling 41 damage
You search the area, digging through the ash. After all, something must have drawn the skreelings here, right? And, what do you know? On the eastern wall, just under the ashy surface, lies two bodies. They are tall and skinny, with odd proportions. Some of you recognize them as sarcesians! The dead sarcesians still have some of their gear, and aside from their torn-up and useless armor, two advanced Diasporan rifles, two tactical dueling swords, and two credsticks holding 1,500 credits apiece can still be salvaged.
You keep searching. The ash filling the two northern alcoves in this area mostly covers old bones. However, beneath those you find a partially intact skeleton in a sitting position. The skeleton’s armor and flesh have long rotted away, but across its lap is a thin, jagged, and rusted piece of metal. Emblazoned on it, in Castrovelian, are the barely legible words “Imura Excavations.”
Quickly setting his targetting systems to recalibrate as they search, Zulu briefly pauses to look over the rifles.
"Nice."
Them he continues to help search.
Davrin holds up his pistol for a moment longer after the last skreeling falls, possibly for dramatic effect, before keeping it back into his holster with a smirk.
---
"Wow, what do you think happened here?" Davrin asks, somewhat cowed from all the dead bodies.
"Oooh, look what I found!" His mood uplifts immediately when he pulls out the 4 bars of silver.
As she slowly takes bleed damage, Pippimi down at her minor wound in alarm. "Davrin, Zulu! Please help or Pippimi bleed whole way to death! Can feel life... fading from arm already... not sure how long can stay conscious..." While her wound is minor, the bleeding is surprisingly persistent and it seems she does need medical attention.
---
Once she gets some help, she comments "Pippimi thinking maybe end up like dead sarcesian... but thankfully she have team!" While the others uncover incredible riches in the little hive, she steps outside to keep any eye out for any other skreelings flapping around.
Hearing Pippimi's plight, Zulu quickly wades over and pulls out his medical kit.
"Quick Clot and some spray skin should resolve. Seal breach in suit too."
"Whew! Good thing Zulu is here. I mean, I only took that first aid course 'cos some of my clients sometimes ask for things to get a little... extreme if you know what I mean."
Pippimi breathes out in relief "Phoooo. Zulu really lifesaver! If you working under Pippimi, definitely suggest you for promotion." She pats her suit down to make sure the wound won't reopen, then heads out of the little dome.
"Where team think cult guys go? Pippimi confused. Team find so many dead body, but no cult guys left."
"I am not sure. I expected this place to be crawling with them if it is there base...is anyone able to get enough of a connection here to look up this Imura Excavations?" he asks the group.
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Getting a very slight signal from your ship, you look up Imura Excavations on the cached web file. From a brief space-i-pedia search, you learn that it is a mining company that went defunct a few dozen years ago.
Deciding not to go back towards the ship down the alternative route, you head further along the asteroid. Heading to the west, you head to an isolated grotto is dotted with piles of silvery ash. To the northwest, a low shelf of rock dams a pool of thick greenish liquid. A humanoid body in torn robes with one arm chewed off is ominously propped against the ledge.
That thick greenish liquid is actually a harsh acid! Touching it will hurt quite a bit, more than a fire. Being submerged in it... you won't feel it for long.
In the center of the open area there is a small mound of ash. Beneath it... is that a wooden trap door? Interesting...
"Ominous."
Zulu mutters as he looks over the scene, noting the body totally not half eaten by some gibbering monstrosity from the outer dark hiding in the pool.
"In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." he mutters idly for no reason he can comprehend as he looks around.
But apparently the ominous thoughts running through his cortex disable his knowledge skills.
Luckily, his Exocortex was working independently of his own mind and sent a warning beep into his musings and brought some very important observations to the front of his mind.
"Green liquid is acid. Take care."
At the sight of the rather ominous scene, Davrin instinctively wants to find a safe hiding spot. But he spots something...
So instead of moving towards the obvious acid pool or the dead pool, he moves towards the pile of ash near the centre, and carefully stir through the ash.
Zoran stays in place watching Davrin skulk closer to the pile.
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"Thank for warning Zulu. Pippimi crossing fingers that Cult base not inside acid pool..." Pippimi sees nothing too unusual about the scene beyond its various theatrically ominous qualities, so she follows after Davrin and Lenny. "This remind of commercial Pippimi once see. Any second now, evil demon rise up from acid and offer coupon for 50% off facial cleanser. Hmmm..."
Clank remains in the back, letting the other more perceptive types do the searching. From experience he knows that he's a bit too distractable to be a reliable search-and-rescue-or-pillage participant. "So, you guys find anything?" He contents to keep a look out for anyone coming while the rest of the group does there thing.
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Lenny walks over to inspect the pool while Zoran, Clank, and Zulu stay back from the ominous scene. Davrin walks towards the pile of ash, his eyes alight with discovery. Then... you later notice, as you go through the memory in your minds, that his eyes glaze over... go dark... His stealthy ways continue, but this time he heads straight towards the acid pool. He mutters under his breath, "There's a trap door under the pool of acid, I bet. I should stand on the edge and look for it. Yepp, right at the edge." Unclear on what's happening, Pippimi follows the other two forward.
As Lenny and Davrin get close to the acid pool, a horrifying eldritch monster bursts out of the acid pool! "SKREEEEAAAAAAA!" It's round, swollen, body is enormous. Standing over 10 feet tall, and weighing significantly more than any of you, it stands on dozens of large tentacles and waves wings that are much smaller than you would think a creature of that size requires.
This is a Skreesire. Skreesires are insidious horrors that lurk in the rocky reaches of the universe. Skreesires round bodies are bulky and intimidating. Their wings are nonfunctional, and they use their tentacles for grabbing prey. They stand up to 10 feet tall and weigh up to 500 pounds. This being is likely both mother and father to the Skreelings you encountered in the outer cave. Unlike their young, skreesires live solitary lives and are fiercely protective of their territories, even from other skreesires. They view any intrusion from a sentient creature as a threat, and thus they often use their infamous mental abilities to twist intruders’ minds and cause those creatures to flee. If that fails, they descend on the trespasser with teeth and tentacles.
The being lashes out at it's prey, Davrin, with a long tentacle, bridging the 10 foot gap between them. It slaps at his chest, dealing significant damage. However, when it tries to wrap around his chest, Davrin bends over backwards in a move he's practiced many times before and slips out. As he stands up now, his eyes are no longer gray and clouded.
Clank and Zoran, seeing the rippling in the acid pool just before the Skreeling burst out, are the first to act!
Zoran
Clank
Davrin 19/35 SP
Zulu
Lenny
Pippimi
Thing From Outer Space - 0 Damage
Clank shakes his head of all the timey-whimey-wibbly-wobbly-stuff, and is alerted to the attacking monstrosity. "Hey, guys? I think that's the..." He breaks off a second comically considering his words and trying to avoid thinking about reproductive physics of alien life. "It's the complicated parent of those things we just killed. It can mess with people's minds and make them afraid! Don't get grabbed, but I can grease you if we need to"
He begins earning more Air Goblins to distract the thing.
Zoran sees the battle begin and rushes to catch up...
This sure seemed like a smaller distance when looking at it.
"You heard Clank, right? Davrin that is not a client you want to take one...shake it off and teach a painful lesson. We don't die." Zoran calls out to Davrin.
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Clank knows that Skreesires resist all physical damage that is not from a blade made of Cold Iron. Additionally, they are immune to Acid!
As both Zoran and Clank prepare for battle, the Skreesire's tentacle whips out at Davrin! "THWAP!" It hits him in the leg, but the suckers don't quite grab at his armor!
Lenny
Clank
Davrin 24/35 SP
Zulu
Zoran
Pippimi
Skreesire -
Somewhat surprised at the apparent willful disregarding of his notification the pool was acid Zulu hurries forward to support the group just as the monstrosity bursts from the pool. Hearing Clank mention something about it being the complicated parent of the screeling things, Zulu figures it's probably resistant to acid but, hopefully, not lasers.
Pippimi yelps in surprise "Ack! It big boss of cultists! Pippimi not approve!" She draws her artillery laser cannon off her back, props the giant laser atop her head, and sends a blast at the skreesire!
The sharp pain from the tentacles wakes Davrin from the enchantment. "What.. Who.. How.. Huh?" Zoran's rallying call further awakens him.
Feeling somewhat foolish for fallen victim, Davrin weaves about avoiding the tentacles as he retreat, as he trains his pistol to fire upon the creature.
Clank observes the battle and adds as an afterthough. "I bet this thing is resistant to damage... and if the acid bath didn't make it obvious, don't use that." He directs the air elementals to attack, then takes a shot himself.
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Zulu and Pippimi's shots are true, but collide into the low rock wall the Skreesire is floating behind. Meanwhile, Lenny and Davrin's shots go wild, not getting close to the monster.
In a flurry of airy teeth, three goblins burst from Clank and fly at the Skreesire! They surround it in a mini hurricane but the creature leaves unmolested. Working alongside the little beings, Clank sends a large laser bolt into the aberration's chest! It screams in pain, this time not aloud but inside your mind! "SKREEEEEEEE!"
The Skreesire's body rocks from side to side as it wobbles out of the acid pool. It rounds the corner of the wall, coming into full view. It is a view from your nightmares, acid dripping, air elementals bouncing off it's chest. Four tentacles erupt from those holding up it's massive frame, grabbing Lenny's appendages and ripping them in four different directions. The bulky gym owner now looks small as he is lifted several inches off the ground! The Skreesire crows in victory as it's mouth opens wide. ""
Lenny 30/45 SP, Pinned
Clank
Davrin 24/35 SP
Zulu
Zoran x2
Pippimi
Skreesire - 10 damage
Zulu slides forward to get a better angle on the beast and triggers a laser blast again, hoping for better effect.
With the tentacled beast up close, Pippimi hops forward underneath its swinging limbs and stabs at it twice with her starknife.
"Let go of Lenny! He not good to eat!"
Zoran quickly moves up to assist firing off a shot from his laser pistol.
---
After seeing Lenny wrapped in the tentacles Zoran lets out a bellowing shriek at the creature letting him know his pack does not die.
"Lenny, we got your back. Fight free!" he calls out after.
"Lenny!" Davrin quickly steps aside to get a clear shot and fires again.
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Pippimi and Zulu's attacks futilely bounce off the thick hide of the skreesire, but Zoran gets lucky! His pistol shot veers into the open maw of the creature, burning some alien gases inside! The gases burn for a few seconds before going out, eliciting more psychic screams.
Zoran follows this up with an alien scream, mimicking that of the beast's! It pauses for a moment, confused. Lenny takes the opportunity to try and wriggle his way free. The tentacles hold him tight, however! The gym owner gets the sinking feeling that it is impossible for him to wriggle his way out of these tentacles and very very difficult to force his way out without assistance. Instead he just looks up at the alien, predatory, eyes as they meet his own. Davrin interrupts the moment, sending a small laser blast into a tentacle!
The creature lets go of three of Lenny's appendages, instead wrapping all four tentacles around his left leg. With a mighty heave, the Skreesire pulls Lenny ten feet backwards, INTO THE POOL OF .
The acid begins to eat into Lenny's boots and lower body, kept at bay by his armor. You all realize three things at once. Lenny is laying in a pool of acid, but is no longer held down by the tentacles. The tentacles are long, whipping out at the area around it's lunch prey, Lenny. It is now back behind the wall that protected it so well.
Lenny 34/45 SP
Clank x2
Davrin 24/35 SP
Zulu
Zoran
Pippimi
Skreesire - 26 damage, Shaken
"Curses!" Davrin mutters as the creature retreats and gets behind cover. With his quick movement, however, Davrin runs around the other side of the wall, spotting it from the other side, as he fires again.
Pippimi rolls forwards and hops up onto the rocky outcropping, grabby paws extended. She hops up and grabs a hold of a writhing tentacle and grasps tight! "Stop wrigglering!"
"I don't have the best aim but I will ward them off the best I can." Zoran says moving up to get within range of his two allies.
He then raises his pistol and fires again.
Annoyed that he missed his shot and feeling reckless, Zulu charges in to near point blank range to distribute firey displeasure at the monster currently giving Lenny most unpleasant acid bath and full body massage.
Clank does what he knew was going to come up all fight, and casts grease on Lenny. "It's the way!" meanwhile his elementals continue their attacks with mixed results.
Wanting to get the fight to end quickly to rescue the dipped comrade, Clank casts a Magic missile.
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Davrin runs around to the other side, leaping over the dead body in the way, but his sprint throws off his aim.
Pippimi rolls up and onto the low shelf, narrowly avoiding a tentacle that lashes out. Standing up tall, she grabs hold of the Skreesire's wing and holds it in place! Her normally effective gloves don't seem to work as well on the beast... Thanks to Pippimi holding the beast in place, Zoran is able to line up a shot! His laser nicks part of the Skreesire's wing.
Taking advantage of Pippimi opening the creature up, Zulu fires a large blast into it's chest! After he does so a horde of air elementals descend on the monster, ripping and tearing. Though most of their attacks bounce off, several find major arteries! Seeing the creature still standing, Clank sends a few magic missiles into the tentacles of the beast.
The Skreesire turns in place, much faster than you would expect. It rips it's wing out of Pippimi's firm grasp and instead wraps a large tentacle around her legs!
Lenny 34/45 SP x2 (First round has no AoO left.)
Clank
Davrin 24/35 SP
Zulu
Zoran
Pippimi, Grappled
Skreesire - 77 damage